At Jake’s on Fourth, hospitality, hard work and community take center stage.

Words by Marla Price | Images by Al Blanton

Jake Wilson and Ani Piper view hospitality as a calling. The pair behind Jake’s on Fourth, which opened in November 2025, have built their careers around a simple goal: making someone’s day better with a warm plate of food and a friendly smile.

“I always knew I wanted to help people,” Jake reflects. “Doing that through food—it’s a very rewarding, very gratifying job.”

Their path to restaurant ownership was built on grit, patience, and years of hands-on experience. Both spent years working in Jasper restaurants, including Black Rock Bistro and Five Loaves Bakery, where they developed their skills and learned the many sides of the food service industry. Jake tended bar and gravitated toward the front of the house, while Ani moved from waiting tables to creating dishes in the kitchen. Both also worked in catering, gaining experience serving guests in a variety of settings.

Along the way, they learned not only the art of upscale cuisine, but also the business behind it, from profit-and-loss management to building lasting customer relationships. Even after briefly stepping away from the restaurant industry to pursue other careers, they eventually felt themselves drawn back. They missed the unique fulfillment that came from feeding and serving their community.

Turning their dream of restaurant ownership into reality meant transforming a historic downtown Jasper space formerly home to Paper Places Book Shop and Jasper Bottle and Tap. When renovations began in 2023, there was plenty of work ahead.

“The kitchen was just a storage room with no water,” Ani recalls. Jake adds that they had to build the bar area entirely from scratch.

Over the next two years, they poured their time, energy, and savings into making the space their own. Opening on their target date of Nov. 13, 2025, felt “nothing short of divine,” Jake says. He credits God, along with the tireless support of friends and community members who rallied around them, with helping them cross the finish line.

That labor of love is now evident throughout Jake’s on Fourth, from the atmosphere to the plates leaving the kitchen.

Ani serves as the creative force behind the menu, while the couple shares grilling and cooking responsibilities. During dinner service, Ani typically takes the helm in the kitchen while Jake manages the front of the house. Before a plate reaches a guest, one of them personally oversees it to make sure it meets their standards.

“There’s nothing that comes out of the kitchen that we would not eat,” Jake says.

That attention to quality extends to their ingredients, especially the fresh seafood the restaurant has become known for. Seafood dishes are among Ani’s personal favorites, while Jake gravitates toward one of the menu’s more playful offerings: the bologna sandwich – featuring bologna that has been smoked, then fried, layered with pimento cheese, homemade bacon jam, and mayonnaise – which he jokingly calls the “Alabama filet mignon.”

Jake and Ani quickly emphasize that the restaurant is not theirs alone. Their staff has become an important part of what they are building.

“We can’t do it on our own, and we’ve fortunately had extremely low turnover,” Jake says.

Respect for customers is one of the values they work to instill in every employee. Their children have also become part of the restaurant’s story, pitching in with everything from hosting guests to drying dishes.

For Jake and Ani, each day the doors open can feel a little like a homecoming, particularly when familiar faces from their earliest restaurant days walk through them.

“The very first table I waited on when I was nineteen was Jeff and Amy Grice,” Jake remembers. “They’ve been in here several times, along with Jerry and Connie Selman,” another couple he first met during his early years in the restaurant business.

Years later, Jake welcomes those same customers into a restaurant of his own.

“It’s kind of crazy that it’s come full circle,” he says, “but that’s why I love this town—that’s why I stay here.”

That full-circle connection is part of what Jake and Ani say makes the long hours and years of work worthwhile. Jake’s on Fourth may bear Jake’s name, but at its heart, the restaurant reflects the calling he and Ani share: feeding people, welcoming them well, and serving the community that has supported them along the way. 78